ID :
98555
Thu, 01/07/2010 - 08:29
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/98555
The shortlink copeid
Kan to replace Fujii as Japan's next finance minister+
TOKYO, Jan. 7 Kyodo - Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan will be Japan's next finance minister, replacing Hirohisa Fujii who is suffering from poor health, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Wednesday.
''We can do nothing about health problems. I accepted his resignation,''
Hatoyama told reporters at the premier's office.
The first resignation by a member of the Cabinet, only about four months after
its launch, will likely be a fresh blow to Hatoyama, who has recently seen a
double-digit fall in public support and the nation's economy struggling to move
out of the prolonged slump.
''Deputy Prime Minister Kan was the No. 1 person in providing strong indirect
support'' for drawing up the fiscal 2010 budget, Hatoyama said in explaining
the reason for naming him as new finance minister.
Hatoyama also said he wanted to minimize potential damage to the government
caused by the 77-year-old Fujii's resignation, so he chose Kan.
''I believe Deputy Prime Minister Kan will sufficiently perform his part,''
Hatoyama said. ''I am not worried.''
Hatoyama had to act quickly as he needs to pass the largest-ever budget, at 92
trillion yen, approved by the Cabinet on Dec. 25, in the upcoming ordinary Diet
session scheduled to begin Jan. 18.
Despite his involvement in the budget drafting process, however, the
63-year-old Kan, who was the DPJ's first leader about 10 years ago, does not
have in-depth experience of steering the economy.
Kan told reporters that he once declined to hold the new post during talks with
Hatoyama on Wednesday, telling him, ''There should be a more suitable person.''
But Kan said he eventually accepted the position following Hatoyama's strong
request.
With the appointment, Yoshito Sengoku, state minister in charge of
administrative reform, will concurrently serve as state minister for national
strategy, a post currently held by Kan.
Their appointments are scheduled to be effective on Thursday, Hatoyama said.
Kan will retain the posts of deputy prime minister and minister for economic
and fiscal policy.
Kan said he wants to consider Japan's revitalization ''in a larger
perspective,'' given that he is keeping hold of the two posts, when asked by
reporters at the premier's office about his main tasks after becoming finance
chief.
Hatoyama said the personnel changes had also been approved by Ichiro Ozawa, the
powerful secretary general of the main ruling Democratic Party of Japan who
orchestrated a landslide election victory last August, which ended a
half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Hatoyama said he has no plans to pick any new Cabinet members for the time being.
Sengoku told reporters the new Cabinet lineup is likely to be maintained until
around the time of the upper house election in the summer.
In the afternoon, Hatoyama held on-and-off discussions on the personnel
appointments with key Cabinet members including Kan, Sengoku and Chief Cabinet
Secretary Hirofumi Hirano.
Fujii, who has been hospitalized since late December, told Hatoyama on Tuesday
that he wanted to resign due to poor health, according to ruling party
lawmakers.
Hatoyama had tried to persuade Fujii to stay on, but he was adamant about
stepping down, the lawmakers said.
Hatoyama was afraid of losing Fujii partly because the first real Diet debate
on budgetary matters with the opposition parties is just around the corner.
Fujii, one of the few members of the Cabinet with previous government
experience, was admitted to hospital on Dec. 28 for medical tests due to
exhaustion and high blood pressure following weeks of tense negotiations to
draft the budget for the year starting in April.
Ahead of the last election, Fujii had considered retiring from politics but
changed his mind after Hatoyama strongly urged him not to do so.
Fujii was also finance minister from 1993 to 1994, during the LDP's first spell
out of power since it was founded in 1955.
Ozawa was not supportive of the plan to appoint Fujii as finance minister, but
Hatoyama believed that no one in the ruling party could match the veteran
lawmaker's expertise in budgetary matters and clout over other lawmakers.
Fujii was a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, working mostly in the Budget
Bureau, before he was first elected in 1977 to the House of Councillors on the
LDP ticket.
Kan, meanwhile, is an activist-turned-lawmaker who shot to fame when he was
health minister in 1996, battling bureaucrats over Japan's HIV-tainted-blood
scandals involving the ministry and a now-defunct pharmaceutical firm.
He was then a key member of the multiparty ruling coalition that dethroned the
LDP in 1993.
After the LDP returned to power, Kan formed the DPJ with other anti-LDP
lawmakers in April 1998 and was its first leader until September 1999.
In addition to health reasons, DPJ sources said, Fujii was dissatisfied with
his working circumstances after clashing with Kan over how to draft the next
fiscal year's budget in the face of fiscal constraints.
''He was dissatisfied that Mr. Kan had interfered too much in the budget
formulation,'' one of the sources said, adding that the finance minister was
also not happy with Ozawa, who said the Cabinet ended up drafting the budget in
December under the strong influence of the Finance Ministry contrary to its
commitment.
Following Fujii's resignation, Ozawa, the previous head of the DPJ, may have a
greater say on key issues, some of the lawmakers said, amid the delicate
balance of power that already exists between him and Hatoyama.
==Kyodo
2010-01-07 00:09:36
''We can do nothing about health problems. I accepted his resignation,''
Hatoyama told reporters at the premier's office.
The first resignation by a member of the Cabinet, only about four months after
its launch, will likely be a fresh blow to Hatoyama, who has recently seen a
double-digit fall in public support and the nation's economy struggling to move
out of the prolonged slump.
''Deputy Prime Minister Kan was the No. 1 person in providing strong indirect
support'' for drawing up the fiscal 2010 budget, Hatoyama said in explaining
the reason for naming him as new finance minister.
Hatoyama also said he wanted to minimize potential damage to the government
caused by the 77-year-old Fujii's resignation, so he chose Kan.
''I believe Deputy Prime Minister Kan will sufficiently perform his part,''
Hatoyama said. ''I am not worried.''
Hatoyama had to act quickly as he needs to pass the largest-ever budget, at 92
trillion yen, approved by the Cabinet on Dec. 25, in the upcoming ordinary Diet
session scheduled to begin Jan. 18.
Despite his involvement in the budget drafting process, however, the
63-year-old Kan, who was the DPJ's first leader about 10 years ago, does not
have in-depth experience of steering the economy.
Kan told reporters that he once declined to hold the new post during talks with
Hatoyama on Wednesday, telling him, ''There should be a more suitable person.''
But Kan said he eventually accepted the position following Hatoyama's strong
request.
With the appointment, Yoshito Sengoku, state minister in charge of
administrative reform, will concurrently serve as state minister for national
strategy, a post currently held by Kan.
Their appointments are scheduled to be effective on Thursday, Hatoyama said.
Kan will retain the posts of deputy prime minister and minister for economic
and fiscal policy.
Kan said he wants to consider Japan's revitalization ''in a larger
perspective,'' given that he is keeping hold of the two posts, when asked by
reporters at the premier's office about his main tasks after becoming finance
chief.
Hatoyama said the personnel changes had also been approved by Ichiro Ozawa, the
powerful secretary general of the main ruling Democratic Party of Japan who
orchestrated a landslide election victory last August, which ended a
half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party.
Hatoyama said he has no plans to pick any new Cabinet members for the time being.
Sengoku told reporters the new Cabinet lineup is likely to be maintained until
around the time of the upper house election in the summer.
In the afternoon, Hatoyama held on-and-off discussions on the personnel
appointments with key Cabinet members including Kan, Sengoku and Chief Cabinet
Secretary Hirofumi Hirano.
Fujii, who has been hospitalized since late December, told Hatoyama on Tuesday
that he wanted to resign due to poor health, according to ruling party
lawmakers.
Hatoyama had tried to persuade Fujii to stay on, but he was adamant about
stepping down, the lawmakers said.
Hatoyama was afraid of losing Fujii partly because the first real Diet debate
on budgetary matters with the opposition parties is just around the corner.
Fujii, one of the few members of the Cabinet with previous government
experience, was admitted to hospital on Dec. 28 for medical tests due to
exhaustion and high blood pressure following weeks of tense negotiations to
draft the budget for the year starting in April.
Ahead of the last election, Fujii had considered retiring from politics but
changed his mind after Hatoyama strongly urged him not to do so.
Fujii was also finance minister from 1993 to 1994, during the LDP's first spell
out of power since it was founded in 1955.
Ozawa was not supportive of the plan to appoint Fujii as finance minister, but
Hatoyama believed that no one in the ruling party could match the veteran
lawmaker's expertise in budgetary matters and clout over other lawmakers.
Fujii was a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, working mostly in the Budget
Bureau, before he was first elected in 1977 to the House of Councillors on the
LDP ticket.
Kan, meanwhile, is an activist-turned-lawmaker who shot to fame when he was
health minister in 1996, battling bureaucrats over Japan's HIV-tainted-blood
scandals involving the ministry and a now-defunct pharmaceutical firm.
He was then a key member of the multiparty ruling coalition that dethroned the
LDP in 1993.
After the LDP returned to power, Kan formed the DPJ with other anti-LDP
lawmakers in April 1998 and was its first leader until September 1999.
In addition to health reasons, DPJ sources said, Fujii was dissatisfied with
his working circumstances after clashing with Kan over how to draft the next
fiscal year's budget in the face of fiscal constraints.
''He was dissatisfied that Mr. Kan had interfered too much in the budget
formulation,'' one of the sources said, adding that the finance minister was
also not happy with Ozawa, who said the Cabinet ended up drafting the budget in
December under the strong influence of the Finance Ministry contrary to its
commitment.
Following Fujii's resignation, Ozawa, the previous head of the DPJ, may have a
greater say on key issues, some of the lawmakers said, amid the delicate
balance of power that already exists between him and Hatoyama.
==Kyodo
2010-01-07 00:09:36
